Vietnam Wives: Women and Children Facing the Challenge of Living with Veterans with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (Second Edition)

 By Aphrodite Matsakis, Ph.D.

This book explores the inner life of combat veterans and their wives and children.  This book is geared to increase a woman’s awareness of her own needs and strengths, as well as to increase her understanding of the effects of combat on her husband and his ability to relate to her and their children. Children, parents, and other family members and friends of combat veterans will find this book useful in understanding their veteran’s pain, and their own, and in providing practical suggestions for day-to-day life with post-traumatic stress disorder.

Vietnam Wives is available from the Sidran Institute, 200 East Joppa Road, Suite 207   Baltimore, MD. 21286    410 825 8888 or toll-free 1 888 825 8249   www.sidran.org

Reviews for Vietnam Wives  

 Vietnam Wives is a profoundly moving book on the psychological and social consequences of war for families; a “must read” for anyone interested in the realities of war. It should be required reading for all politicians. There are lots of helpful suggestions for wives at the end.        

Patience H. Mason, Author of Recovering from the War; Editor of The Post- Traumatic Gazette

This book is a “must read” for families of Vietnam veterans who have PTSD from their war experiences. Compassionate, wise and useful, this down-to-earth book is a helpful guide which will benefit all who read it.        

John P. Wilson, PH.D., Professor and Director of Center for Stress and Trauma, Cleveland, Ohio

There is a second edition of Vietnam Wives because the first edition struck a resonant chord among those who care most about the lessons it provides – the hundreds of thousands of wives who care deeply about their warrior husbands. They know about living with someone with a disability (PTSD) that, like a disease, destroys people and their relationships with others. Dr. Matsakis states on page 2, “To all of you Vietnam wives who think that your suffering is unique, I wish to assure you. You are not alone.” And we are all the better for it.  

Charles Figley, Ph.D., Psychosocial Stress Research Program, Florida State University

 Nothing I have ever read more convincingly illuminates the inner life of Vietnam wives and the family climate made toxic by war. Happily the postwar spouse has an ally now: The book Vietnam Wives was written expressly for her, for the woman caught up in the throes of Vietnam’s nightmarish existence. The book is geared to increase a woman’s awareness of her own needs, strengths, and choices and to increase coping by learning practical techniques that put her in control of her situation and reduce her sense of being overwhelmed.  

            Erwin Randolph Parson, Ph.D.  Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy.

Copyright (c) 2018  Aphrodite Matsakis.  All Rights Reserved